FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022
Washington, D.C. (February 24, 2022) – The American Academy of Family Physicians is deeply concerned by the growing trend of recent legal opinions and legislative efforts to restrict the delivery of care to specific patient populations. The AAFP strongly opposes any such effort to criminalize or penalize physicians for providing comprehensive care for their patients.
The AAFP has long supported access to care for all patient groups, including access to gender-affirming care. Government should not create barriers to health care, encourage overt discrimination, unfairly limit health insurance coverage or interfere in the physician-patient relationship.
Physicians must be able to practice medicine that is informed by their years of medical education, training, experience, and the available evidence, freely and without threat of punishment. Ultimately, patients and their physicians, not policymakers, should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them.
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About the American Academy of Family Physicians
The AAFP is the largest national association of family physicians, representing 128,300 physicians and medical students. Family medicine’s cornerstone is an ongoing, personal patient-physician relationship focused on impactful care for people of all ages, races and genders across all medical conditions. The AAFP supports every stage of a family physician's career and provides evidence-based resources, advocacy and community to empower family medicine. To learn more, visit aafp.org. For information about health care, medical conditions and wellness, please visit the AAFP’s patient education website, familydoctor.org.